


Yours, Mine, Ours.

by KatieLauren



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:15:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatieLauren/pseuds/KatieLauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock return from a holiday to celebrate their first anniversary to find a baby in the flat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the style of writing- this is my first ever fan fic. Comments on how to improve appreciated =)

The box sat, clear as day, on the kitchen table.  
The box was not the issue.  
The contents of the box was the issue.  
Staring up at both Dr John H. Watson and the legendary Sherlock Holmes, was an infant. The kind with very large eyes and long dark eyelashes, and mop of dark curls on it's head, so very small compared to the two men gaping at him from their respective heights. Neither particularly knew what to do. John knew, as a doctor, that he should be checking the baby's vitals and ensuring he was not suffering from exposure or malnutrition or any other of the horrible ailments he had seen take the lives of the children in Afghanistan who on occasion haunted his nightmares. But he also knew that the defenceless creature laying in front of him in a cardboard box, dressed in a white sleepsuit with a blue blanket and teddy draped over it, was in no doubt, aesthetically Sherlocks child.  
Sherlocks child.  
The thought made his stomach twist and his heart turn to stone. Sherlock and who? Molly? No, she hadn't displayed any signs of pregnancy. Irene? In America, under witness protection after Sherlock rescued her and threatened Mycroft into helping her start afresh. A fan? He had no time for them.  
Irene.  
Irene. The baby's eyes were unmistakably the very same pale blue of Irene Adlers.  
His stomach lurched.  
Sherlock had paled considerably under his new tan, but was gazing at the baby with both a look of fear and trepidation, but also wonder. He was still holding his suitcase, but gripping it so tightly his knuckles had turned white.  
John knew, he knew, even without Sherlocks skills and wondrous brain, that he had deduced correctly.  
The baby was clearly able to sense the tension that had developed in the room, because it let out a loud, high pitched wail and began to squirm. John placed his own suitcase on the floor, wondering for a second where that delicious post-first-holiday-as-a-couple feeling had gone.  
Well, your boyfriends secret baby being found in a box on the kitchen table has been known to kill a mood.  
He scooped the infant out of the box and into his arms. The child was hot and surprisingly heavy. The sleepsuit felt thick and was patterned with moons, so John guessed it had been in box on the table for hours, given that it was midday.  
"John." Sherlocks voice interrupted Johns thinking. "the box. Nappies. Bottle. Milk." he had clearly sprung into action as John had been marvelling over the child because he thrust a nappy in Johns direction before dashing in the direction of the bathroom. Retching was heard almost instantly.  
"oh boy." thought John. "He should wait until he changes a nappy". 

\- - - -

When Sherlock emerged from the bathroom half an hour later he was a pasty shade of grey green, his hair sweaty and his eyes heavy. John on the other hand, had changed the baby (learning 'it' was a boy) and fed him one of the milk sachets he made into the bottle provided. It was as though Irene was there, asking them to care for him. She clearly wasn't coming back any time soon. Sherlock stood in front of John dumbly, looking bewildered.  
"Just the once, John, I swear it. I... I... She was there, I wanted you so badly but I couldn't have you and I thought.... I thought it would fix me, because you couldn't love me."  
"You were away. Lebanon?"  
"I.... Yes."  
It was the case after Lebanon that they had admitted how they felt. Running through the streets of London after the husband who murdered his step daughter after she threatened to confess to their affair, the blow to the head John received from the pipe... Waking to find Sherlock curled in a chair in his hospital, fast asleep, having never left him.... Sherlocks baby had been growing all that time.  
"It's a boy. You have a healthy little son. Three months old I'd guess, no signs of prematurity or defect. He's perfect."  
The underlying message being 'unlike you.'  
"What are we going to do about it?" Sherlock said suddenly, his tone brisk and business like. The tone he uses on clients that are missing the obvious, or simply wishing it wasn't true. John knew how they felt.  
"It?"  
"Fine then, him. This is not the time for syntax or emotion, this is pure practicality. It can't stay here, what would we do with it?"  
John was suddenly aware of rage filling him, making the blood in his ears loud. The baby in his arms, the little boy- how could he be thrust away so easily?  
John stood quickly, making the baby mew in protest. He held the child out to Sherlock wordlessly.  
"I can't. I don't know what to do!" Sherlock took the baby awkwardly, making the boy wail. This man was cold and shaky and smelt unpleasantly of vomit. The first man had been soft and warm and had held him closely.

John turned away from Sherlock, picked up his suitcase and walked out of the door. Sherlock heard the front door click and the door to the street slam.

Oh, fuck.  
The baby was still crying mercilessly, wondering where the soft man had gone. Sherlock tried adjusting the child in his arms, but he cried harder.  
"Child." Sherlock said calmly, "please stop crying. I want John back too." The baby continued to bellow, louder still. Realising there was no reasoning with a three month old with no grasp of English, Sherlock put the baby haphazardly onto the armchair and ran outside, down the stairs and into the street after John, cursing the baby for giving John such a head start. He ran around Baker Street and London for miles, returning home only when he realised John would be at Harry's by then, and thus unreachable.

\- - - - 

John flicked through the list of admissions in A&E that had happened before he came on shift. A bad nights sleep on Harry's sofa had done nothing to improve his mood, but he was considering calling Lestrade when his shift was over to make sure the baby was given to the correct authorities.

'Hamish Holmes'

The name jumped out from the list.

'Name: Hamish Holmes  
Unit: Paediatric Special Care  
Address: 221B Baker Street  
Next of Kin: Sherlock Holmes'


	2. Before The Worst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for non graphic injury to a baby.  
> Apologies for OOC, it isn't OOC in my head but it came out that way

Sherlock slammed the front door behind him and slid down it, lying in a crumpled heap against it.   
His mind was consumed only with thoughts of John. John. The flat seemed so empty and so silent without him- there was no one to tell him to take off his coat and his boots, soaked through from the rain (at any other time he would have mocked the moment and the pathetic fallacy to John. But John wasn’t there.) ; no offer of tea or biscuits. No dinner. No comforting smells of home.  
Even the flat smelt wrong without John. There was a sour reek in the air, a smell Sherlock recognised.... From a case? ..... Which case? Oh! It was the smell that had existed in that house... the house from the case that had involved the sale of young infants to ‘adoptive’ parents. It was the smell of a full nappy.  
Oh my god. Oh shit. Oh no, oh god no, oh please God no....  
Sherlock sprang up from where he had let himself fall in a moment of self pity and leapt over the debris from the holiday to the armchairs. The baby lay on the floor, mercilessly face up, far away from the sharp edges of the coffee table. Eyes closed. Sleeping? Unconscious. Breathing slightly. Sherlock pulled out his mobile from his pocket and called an ambulance.  
He lay on the floor next to the boy, stroking his tiny hand.  
“I’m sorry I’m so unprepared for this. I’m sorry I don’t know how to do this. I’m sorry I left you to be scared and alone. I’m so sorry I let you down.” He choked down a sob. “Please keep breathing. I will bring John home. I will find your mother.” Sherlock could hear sirens from outside “you know, the day I met your mother John joked about us naming a baby Hamish. It suits you. He’s smart like that, your dad.”  
Mrs Hudson opened the front door to 221B, letting in the paramedics.   
Sherlock did not know it, but when he would recall the night later he would realise that moment of total helplessness was the first moment he thought of Hamish as his son.

\------

John opened the door to Neonatal High-Dependency Care silently. It was never a room he’d been comfortable in. He was close friends with one of the paediatric nurses, Jessica, and told her that when it came to their brand new babies and those first moments of parenthood he felt surplus to requirements. All they wanted was their baby healthy; to hold and take home and watch grow- why couldn’t he make that happen? Jessica had taken a long drag on her cigarette and replied that parenthood is 1% instinct, 1% knowledge and 98% fear of getting it wrong- wasn’t his feelings to those babies the same as the parents? He finally knew she was right, as he edged towards Hamish’s incubator. He’d been downgraded from Neonatal Intensive Care when he had regained consciousness and they were certain there was no bleeding on the brain. Thank God. John exhaled slowly as he lent over the plastic box, surveying the sleeping boy. He was going to have one hell of a bruise- they’d have to avoid taking him out for a while or they’d be chased by an angry mob. They? There was no ‘they’. By the end of the day there could be no more child named Hamish Holmes, he could have a new name, a new set of parents and a new home. 

Sherlock was curled on one of the orange plastic chairs, closest to the incubator, stirring from sleep.   
“You came back to us” Sherlock said, his voice full of sleep, curls mussed.   
“of course I did.” John sank onto the orange plastic chair next to Sherlock’s and placed the consultant detectives head on his lap. “What would the pair of you do without me?”  
“We’d be-” Sherlock let out a massive yawn, which was rewarded with a mew from Hamish. John realised that Sherlock was asleep again. He ran his fingers through his partner’s hair as he watched the sun rise slowly through the hospital window. All of the worries- they’d keep until morning truly started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, comments on how to improve appreciated =)


	3. The Calm Before the Storm

"Little brother, when will you learn?"  
"When you finally lay off the cream cakes, brother dearest."  
"Tsk tsk. Who do we think sorted this whole mess? The DNA? The child abuse allegation? I'm even looking for that damn woman for you, the least you can tell me is why!"   
"She has some important information I require. That's all Mycroft."  
"She abandoned him on your kitchen table. What if your flight had been delayed? He could have starved. She does not factor into your decision. Decide, Sherlock. For Christ sake, this is the last thing I need."   
The sound of footsteps storming off dragged John from the last vestiges of sleep. He was still slumped on the bank of orange chairs but Sherlock was now awake and standing by the incubator, back to John.   
John took a moment to savour the peace of not being needed before letting out a small groan to let his partner know he was awake. Sherlock spun round violently, almost knocking into the incubator. Hamish let out a wail of protest.  
"Oh." thought John  
Sherlock was holding Hamish, cradling him awkwardly in one arm, whilst feeding him a bottle of baby formula with the other hand. Sherlock was rumpled and sleep worn, his curls less defined and more scrubbing brush. But Hamish had identical hair and looked so small in Sherlocks arms. It's was all so.... Perfect.   
"what?" snapped Sherlock rudely, stealing Johns train of thought.  
"Nothing. You just look like a father, that's all." John suddenly grinned. "Shall we be needing to refer to you as Daddy in front of Hamish?"   
Sherlock blushed vividly; it would appear he was still unused to his new role and it's emotions. "if you're going to be so childish John, you can feed the baby whilst I deal with other matters; he seems intelligent for his maturity, maybe you've found an equal?"   
"Give him here then. What other matters?" Sherlock passed Hamish to John hurriedly before sinking onto the chair next to him.  
"The matter of his papers, sorting out some sort of room for him. Mrs Hudsons on her herbal soothers so she's as much use as a chocolate teapot." he drew breath. "but Lestrade said he'd bring round some of Toby and Andreas old things so that's partly taken care of. How are you doing that?" Sherlock gestured to Johns arms, where he was cradling Hamish, who was drinking peacefully.  
"What?' Sherlock glared in response. "Oh. I dunno. Just experience I guess."  
Sherlock snorted with laughter. "Right. I've never even seen you with a baby. The closest you've come is Lestrade little monsters and I swear you almost threw up when-"  
John's head spun suddenly. The bloody sheets, the beep of machines, crying- and a white Moses basket. The memories flooded; overwhelming. His stomach lurched.   
"I.... Just need some air." John stood up quickly, placing Hamish in the incubator roughly, before turning and running out of the room.

Sherlock unlocked his phone and hesitated for a brief moment before dialling.  
"He's going to leave me."  
"Hello to you too."  
"Johns going to leave me."  
"And?"  
"You can fix this."  
"But do I want to?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading =)


End file.
